Road Trip
by Led Feynman M.D
Summary: Zuko, Aang, Sokka, and Katara are driving to a meeting in the southern Earth Kingdom. One of these days, guys. I promise.
1. Chapter the First

No weird non-sequiter bullshit. None of that teenage-girl penguin humor. Seriously, penguins? Well, whatever. This is happening, so don't fight it. And now I'm a rapist.

-

"Okay, clothes, water, beef jerky and stuff," Zuko checked off his list while Katara loaded then into his car.

"Is beef jerky all we're bringing?" Katara heaved a cooler into the backseat.

"No, there's fruit, chips, and assorted fruit roll-ups in there." He motioned to the cooler with his pen. "Oh, and candy. I bought a big bag of candy."

"Why did you put the chips in the cooler? Are they like ice chips or something?"

"It's not that funny. Don't laugh. That isn't funny. Where the hell are Sokka and Aang?" The Firelord paced around his car impatiently.

"I'm right here!" Sokka jogged across the parking lot from behind the apartment building, patting a smoldering circle on his shoulder.

"What's wrong with your shirt?" Katara breathed, brushing hair out of her face and leaning against the open car door.

"Nothing. Are we ready?" Sokka said triumphantly.

"Yeah. We need to leave about- fifteen minutes ago," Zuko read off quickly from the itinerary on his clipboard. "Where is Aang?"

Just then a blue glider made a lazy circle above the trio and the Avatar dropped from the sky with a graceful twirl of his glider. "Here I am. Are we ready?"

Zuko hissed sharply. "Yeah, Aang, you can't take that."

"What, my glider?" The boy gripped his shaft tighter in surprise.

"I'm sorry, it's just that there's no room in the car."

"But, can't we put it on the roof?"

"Sorry."

"You can put it in our room," Katara sighed, standing up from the car. "Just, um, lock the door please."

"Come on, we need to hit the road."

Aang sulked inside the palace. Zuko read down the list again quickly. "Ok, that should do it. We'll wait for him and then go."

"SHOTGUN!" Sokka screamed about 17 billion times louder than absolutely necessary. Katara and Zuko each winced at the sudden noise.

"Ok, sure," mumbled Zuko.

"Whatever," Katara sighed. She climbed into the back seat behind Sokka.

The Avatar shuffled out of the apartment sadly. The Firelord climbed into the driver's seat and started the car. Then Aang came in.

"Sorry Aang, but there's just no room in the car. And besides, I really don't think that we'll come into a problem we can't solve without your staff."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Aang buckled up as Zuko maneuvered out of the parking lot.

The car reached the road and Zuko waited for the other drivers to pass.

"Oh, wait!" Sokka cried, reaching down to go through his bag. "I made a mix tape for the drive!" He lifted the tape out and slammed it into the tape deck.

"NO SLEEP 'TILL BROOKLYN!-" Zuko slapped the eject button, yanked the tape from the player, and threw it out his window, all while flooring it out of the parking lot and on to the main road.

A part of the magnetic tape had caught on to the inside of the mechanism, and it trailed out the window across his forearms as Zuko accelerated to 35, 40, and 50 miles an hour. The cassette trailed behind the car like a soup can after a wedding, then finally disconnected.

Sokka gaped in abject shock. "What the hell? I spent three days recording those songs!" Aang and Katara tried not to laugh out loud in the back seat.

"That's as it is, but the Beasty Boys? What are you, twelve?"

"I had like, fifteen songs on there." Sokka whined.

"Yes, but the Beasty Boys?" Zuko spun the car through the intersection. "Sokka, we have a 3,000 mile road trip ahead of us. I don't want to want to kill you in the first- one fifth of a mile."

"Well, now we have nothing to listen to." He leaned back and crossed his arms.

Katara suddenly went, "Oh! -uh, oh."

"What is it, Katara?" Zuko asked.

"I brought some CD's, but your car doesn't have a CD player." She set her bag back on the floor.

Zuko shifted in his seat. "I'm sorry."

"You'd think that the Firelord could afford a nicer car," Sokka butted in.

"I like this car. She's part of the family." Zuko patted the faux leather of the center console.

-

"I'm hungry."

Zuko gripped the steering wheel tightly and slightly angled his torso towards Sokka. "Are you for real?"

"Yeah. I'm hungry."

"Sokka," Zuko began, licking his lips, "we've been driving for fifteen minutes. We left your apartment a quarter of an hour ago."

There was a weird pause for about three seconds. Then, "So, do we have any food?"

"Uhg," Zuko groaned. "Yeah."

"Chips, jerky, fruit roll-ups, and this weird candy from the Fire Nation," Katara listed.

"Fireballs are like, the greatest candy ever!" Zuko almost yelled defensively.

"Candy should be sweet or sour, not spicy."

Sokka reached back for the bag. "I'll try them."

Katara placed one in his hand. Fireballs are like jawbreakers, but spicy. "Aang, do you want one?"

"No thanks."

"I want one," Zuko said.

8 seconds passed. Suddenly, "Ow. Ow ow ow ow." Sokka spit the fireball into his hand and threw it out the window.

"Sokka, please don't throw stuff out of the windows. I may have Diplomatic Immunity here, but littering is rude."

"How do your people choke those down?" Sokka madly scraped his tongue off with a napkin he grabbed from the floor.

"I don't know. They're just good, I guess." Zuko muttered. "Also, that's been down there almost a week."

Katara cleared her throat. "I'll stick with these," she said, lifting a bag of chips.

Another twenty minutes passed.

"That's where I got your player, Aang." Zuko pointed out different stores as they left the city. "And that place right there is the only place I could find that new Mötley Crüe album."

"Zuko, I'm dying. Can you roll down the windows please?" Katara moaned.

"Katara, I told you. Your window is stuck shut and the air conditioning makes the windshield wiper fluid boil. Why don't you bend some water into ice?"

Katara shrugged and bent the sweat pooling on her skin into a layer of frost. "Great idea. Thanks."

"Where did the energy go?" Sokka said from the front seat. I imagined him eating a sandwich for some reason.

"Sokka, where did you get that sandwich?" Zuko grumbled.

"Oh, I brought it."

"Why didn't you eat it twenty minutes ago? When you said you were hungry?"

"I didn't want to eat it the second we hit the road. I wanted to make it last."

"_THAT WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR AGO!_" Zuko shrieked while swerving across four lanes of traffic in rage.

"Jesus Zuko, calm the fuck down! You just cut off an ambulance!" shouted Katara.

Zuko cleared his throat, settled into his seat, and continued as if he didn't just endanger the lives of thirty one people and two dogs.

"Yeah Zuke. Calm down. I would have made you one if you had asked."

"Zuko, you're making the vinyl on the steering wheel melt. Calm down."

Zuko pulled his hands off the wheel for a second to see two handprints melted into the plastic material around it. Strings of melted vinyl clung to his hands as he lifted them away.

"I still have no idea why I brought you along, Sokka. I'm still trying, but I can't do it." Zuko grumbled.

"Uhh... Because you love me?"

Zuko gave up and sighed.

-

SWAZONK. That's the sound a chapter makes when you end it. It's always just too quiet to hear. It's always obscured by you clicking the review button to go "NERD RAGE HURR AHHH ZUTARA GRRRR".


	2. Chapter the Second

Dicks in a big red box, color me impressed. I had no idea that the stupid little road trip story I came up with would get three whole reviews, and only one of them was me! I'd like to thank those of you who did review, and those who added me to favorites but didn't review can sit on a cactus. However, due to all the increased activity, now I have to keep up with the chapters, so fuck you guys. You're the best.

Amethyst, I'm sorry to hear about your cello (?). As for the "setting"... I think they're traveling from the Northern Earth Kingdom to the SEK, so just... I don't know. And it's probably for a political thing. Conference. It's right after the war I guess. Just play along, maybe I'll make something up as I go. It worked for 24.

Dada da...

"Maybe we could... stop at a music store and buy cassettes." Aang suggested.

"We have a schedule, Aang. We can listen to the radio though." Zuko turned the radio on.

Katara snorted suddenly. "What's that sound?" she groaned.

"It's called Music, Katara. You should listen to it." Sokka shot back.

"...Is it a band?" Katara had obviously just woken up from a nap and wasn't running on all pistons.

"He's kidding, Katara. It's Led Zep, I think it's Trampled Under Foot." Zuko came into Katara's defense.

"You know, I've never really listened to Led Zeppelin." Aang said suddenly.

"Duh, you lived in a temple with monks your whole life. A hundred years ago." Zuko responded.

"And you haven't lived until you just lay down in a quiet room, close your eyes and listen to Stairway to Heaven." Sokka added.

"Yeah, and get a little..." Zuko made a pinching motion in front of his smiling lips.

"Hey, I thought it was a cigarette." Sokka said defensively.

"It was as long as your hand and as wide as a finger, and you smiled like a jackass for hours and sat under the kitchen table the rest of the day."

"Well that was after I smoked it. I had no idea what was in it before."

"Whatever," Zuko chuckled.

"Aang was tripping over things from all the second hand smoke," Katara spoke up.

"Oh yeah.."

"Aang, you're funny when you're stoned," Sokka said.

An hour passed. The town faded away behind them, replaced with rolling farmland, and to Sokka's delight, goosecows.

"Mmm. I wonder what you taste like." Sokka whispered out the window.

"Those are dairy goosecows. They don't slaughter those I think." Zuko corrected.

"Oh, they all get the hammer in the end. The Hammer of Death. From sweet green pastures to the butcher to the oven. It's all the same ending."

Aang and Katara leaned away in shock.

"Unless they get that Mad Goosecow thing they're talking about. I hear that's gnarly."

"Worth it."

They travelled in silence for a minute.

"Have you ever seen a Brussels sprout plant?" Katara asked to break the silence.

"No."

"No."

"No."

"Yeah, me neither."

Another two minutes passed.

"Ok. It's red and white."

"My Jack-In-The-Box antenna thing." Zuko motioned out the windshield.

"Nope."

"Uhh..." Zuko quickly looked around the inside of the car. "There's nothing Red and White for miles. What is it?"

Sokka grinned like an imp as he slowly rotated his arm upward. He had a peppermint candy in his fingers. Zuko stared at it in shock for a second. "Ho- Shit. How long has that been there..."

Sokka unwrapped it and ate it. "Katara, it's your turn."

Katara sat up in her seat. "Alright. It's... green."

"Cabbage."

"The corn."

"Those trees."

"Correct."

"Who?" Aang asked.

"Yes."

Katara went back to sleep.

Aang shrugged.

The sun soon kissed the horizon. Katara was snoring and Sokka appeared to be nodding off.

"Hey Zuko, how's Azula?" Aang asked.

"Uh? Uh, she's actually doing better. I visited her about a week ago and she had stopped screaming."

"Ugh, that was the creepiest part. She just screamed."

"Yeah, but now she just kind of lays on the floor and stares straight ahead. I really- I feel bad for her."

The sun set. The car pulled through the forest, which bothered Zuko because he wanted to see the stars this far away from the city. Every few minutes, a break in the trees allowed him to gaze up at the waxing gibbous moon. He sighed.

"Anyone awake?" No one stirred. "I guess I'll take a nap too," he added, to make sure everyone was actually sleeping, and jerked the steering wheel to the right. Aside from the quick jerk, nobody moved.

Zuko sighed again, glanced in the rear-view mordor, and kept driving.

Dododododododododododododod

Sokka woke first. He opened his eyes. In a matter of eight hours, the forest had disappeared and they were in a grassy plain with a few mountains in the distance.

"Where are we?" his voice was dry and whimpy at first but came back by we.

Zuko reached under his legs robotically and produced a map. "See the red line?"

Sokka took the map. "Yeah."

"Somewhere on that line."

"Oh, ok." Sokka brought the map close to his face. Then he looked over at Zuko. "You look beat. Do you want me to drive?"

Zuko shook his head forcefully. "No thanks. I'm on top of my game."

"Sure. Did you drive all night?"

"No, I stopped at a general store somewhere in the forest around two."

"Did you stay? Were they even open?"

"Yeah, I bought fruit. The wife made me coffee and told me about what her cats did in the war."

Sokka frowned. "Are you sure you can drive? That doesn't make sense."

"No, really. Ganesh went around and gave morale to front line troops."

"...ok, is she fit to drive?"

Zuko smiled.

What the fuck is a morror? Why didn't the Most Advanced Operating System in the World catch it? I'm telling you, we should have lynched Steve Jobs when he was alive. Stupid cancer taking the pleasure from us.

Do I need help?

EDIT: I think it's something you're not supposed to walk into.

EDIT: Uh, no, that's something else.


	3. Chapter the Third

I know that compared to some of the rock-star writers out here (?) I'm small change in terms of fans, but the few of you who did subscribe, you guys mean a lot. Thanks much ladies and gentlemen.

Zuko didn't say anything as he slowly decelerated and pulled toward the side of the road. His eyes were the size of grapefruits and he stared at the dials on the dashboard.

"What's wrong, Zuko?" Katara asked.

He didn't say anything for a while. "I can't drive anymore. Anyone want to drive?"

"I'll go," Sokka offered.

Zuko looked in the rear view mirror. "Katara?"

Katara shrugged and went to open the door. "Sure."

"Why can't I drive?" Sokka complained.

"Because we want to live!" Aang said suddenly.

Katara went around to the driver's side. Zuko went to the passenger side and opened the door. "Hop out, Cowboy," he said to Sokka.

"But- why?"

"When I'm not driving, I'm in the passenger seat. Come on."

Sokka got out grumbling and went to the back with Aang. "Hey Aang."

"Hey Sokka."

Katara pulled the car into the lane and accelerated to the speed limit. Zuko fell asleep within seconds.

"Aww, listen to Zuko snore," Katara jeered.

"You're one to talk, Katara. I thought someone was Earthbending back here all night." Aang said.

"Ooh, burn," Sokka added, fist-bumping Aang.

"Number," Aang asked.

"Sixty-two," Katara suggested.

"A hundred and five," Sokka put in.

"I'll put eighty-three and a half."

The car was quiet as Aang wrote the number, then Sokka asked softly, "Did you do that in your head?"

"Ok then, here we go: Deep in the heart of the Dishwasher Swamp, lives a Comfy monster called the 'Agk-ak-ak-l-l.' It is A billion and two feet long, has razor-Clean claws, and its roar sounds like a rabid ManBearPig mixed with a broken FTL drive."

Katara started laughing.

"If you see the 'Agk-ak-ak-l-l', be sure to Earthbend perfectly still, otherwise it is sure to Electrocute you. The beast is attracted to the scent of fresh Mayonnaise. The National Scrapbooking league has issued a 83.5 Yuan reward for its capture."

Sokka and Katara both laughed. Aang smirked as he put the book away. All three of them looked out their respective windows smiling.

"That was a pretty lame story," Sokka said after a few seconds. The others agreed quickly.

"These aren't even real Mad-Libs, they're some kind of generic thing," Aang admitted.

Zuko groaned from the front seat.

In her best baby voice, Katara said, "Somebody's sweepy."

"Anybody hungry?" Katara said suddenly as they passed a lonely Burger King in the small town they were passing through.

"Yes," Sokka whined.

"Too bad!" She barked and sped past the establishment.

"That was kind of rude for you," Aang thought out loud.

"I know. Anyway, I was craving Taco Bell." The foursome pulled into its parking lot and through the drive-thru.

"And a medium root beer, a large Coke, medium water, and what does sweepy here like?" Katara poked Zuko in the chest.

"Doesn't he like Sprite?" Aang recalled.

"And a medium Sprite."

"WILL THAT BE ALL," a tinny voice screamed.

"Ow. Yes, thank you."

"THIRTY-FOUR EIGHTY-NINE PULL UP TO THE NEXT WINDOW PLEASE."

Sokka started laughing. "What the hell is wrong with that thing?"

Katara gave Aang the food. He handed tacos and burritos out to Katara and Sokka left and right.

Sokka poked Zuko's face from behind him. "Yeah, he's gone. It's like two o'clock."

"Let him sleep." Katara knocked Sokka's hands away.

Katara turned the radio on, then switched from the Classic Rock station to a different one.

"Ooh, Taylor Swift."

Aang and Sokka groaned loudly from the back seat. "Dammit Katara, seriously?" Sokka whined.

"What, she's really good!"

"She's _hotter than words can describe_, but it's something else completely to listen to her!"

Katara hummed innocently and turned the radio up.

Meanwhile Aang opened his backpack and retrieved his Walkman and headphones. Sokka stared.

"When did you get a Walkman?"

"It was a gift from Zuko," he said, putting in a tape.

Sokka took Aang's headphones and adjusted the band until the speakers were far enough away so that two heads could fit between them. He looked at Aang and raised his eyebrows in earnest.

"The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in! The engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin!" Aang and Sokka sang in a surprisingly good duet. Katara gripped the steering wheel. She hated that song, and the radio was only getting static, mariachi music, and a crunchy-sounding cowboy singing country.

If she squinted, she could see a silk thread-thin line of structures on the anterior horizon.

Zuko was still unconscious, and Katara secretly marveled at the fact that even though he was upright, he didn't snore even a little. His Sprite was now flat, warm, and watery, and she felt bad for not planning ahead. Oh well, she thought, I'll buy him a new one when we get to the city.

Aang and Sokka's singing ended abruptly. Aang stared at his device in confusion, then toggled the on/off switch a few times.

"Did the batteries die?" Sokka suggested.

"I think so. Darn."

He put his Walkman away in shame.

"You didn't bring any more?"

"I though they were full!" Aang protested.

They went in silence for a few minutes. Then Katara turned the radio on and the car filled with mariachi music.

Aang shrugged.

The Fire Lord woke up quickly and looked out his window. "Where are we?"

Katara glanced at him. "Good morning Sleepy Kitty. We're just outside of Ba Sing Se."

Zuko stared out the windshield for a second, then looked at his watch. "We're actually doing really good." He looked out the back window briefly. "Do I have any speeding tickets I need to worry about?"

"No, I just know how to drive."

Zuko sat up and adjusted his posture.

"We got you a Sprite," Katara offered, picking up his cup. Zuko took it, drank some, and recoiled in surprise.

"What's wrong with it?"

"We got it like four and a half hours ago. I'll buy you a new one in town."

Sleepy Kitty nodded and kept drinking. He turned to face the back of the car.

"Sokka?"

"Yuh?"

"Could you throw me some jerky?"

Sokka sifted through eight metric tonnes of crap and finally found a bag of jerky. "Here's your jerky... jerk."

"Hey Sokka."

"What?"

"Fuck you."

Again, thank you all.


	4. Chapter the Fourth

BEAT ME WITH A WARM GARDEN HOSE. I cannot believe I left the weakest part of the second chapter in. I could have sworn that I removed it! Ugh, kill me.

The Fearsome Foursome pulled up next to 7-11 in Ba Sing Se.

"Zuko, get in the driver's seat so I can go in please?" Katara asked as she exited the vehicle.

"Sure," he said climbing over the center console.

"Can you get batteries please!" Aang shouted.

"And candy!" Sokka added.

Katara opened the door and almost toppled over. She'd been sitting down for nearly eight hours and her legs felt weaker than a Flat Earth argument.

Zing.

"Hello," the guy behind the counter said.

Katara pulled a Sprite out of the fridge, as well as a Coke for herself. Then she went to find candy.

An armful later, as she left the aisle to go to checkout, she turned to her left and was suddenly face to face with dozens of batteries in every shape and color. She muttered something to herself and continued to the counter.

"I'm sorry Aang, but they were all out of batteries!" Katara said upon returning to the car and opening the door.

"The Convenience Store was out of batteries?" Zuko said incredulously. Katara silenced him with a stern look. She gave him his soda and threw Sokka's candy into the backseat.

"Now share those, Sokka. I don't want you getting a tummy ache."

"Whatever." Sokka dove into the pile.

"We just passed Batteries Plus," Aang said silently, placing his hand against the window.

"You know, we're still about thirty minutes ahead of schedule," Zuko pointed to his watch.

"Let's stop at this record store and get some cassettes," Katara suggested.

"I have cassettes," Aang informed.

"The Clash and The Rolling Stones? Sure, Aang. Let's listen to that."

"And The Essential Bob Dylan."

Katara parked the car, paid the meter, and everybody went inside.

"Thirty minutes, let's go. Two tapes each, and they must be approved by me," Zuko commanded.

"Radiohead? Come on Aang." Zuko said to the young Avatar.

"Dude," and Aang placed his hand on Zuko's forearm.

And Zuko knew.

"Ok."

Sokka came up behind Zuko.

"Sokka, if either one of those tapes is Nickelback, Coldplay, or The Beasty Boys, you're walking to Kabarhk," Zuko announced without turning around.

"Uh... No," Sokka said showing them to Zuko.

"Oh. Ok then, great." Zuko said with a thumbs-up.

"You know, a lot of people only know of Journey from that, 'Don't Stop Believing' song. And that's upsetting," Zuko lectured as they returned to his car.

"You don't like that song?" Katara said, almost shocked.

"No, I didn't say that. It's a good song, just not a good Journey song."

"How does that work?" Grumbled Sokka as he buckled up.

"Ok, so, it's a good song, it's just not good at being a Journey song?" Aang attempted to understand.

"Exactly."

"Well I like it," Katara muttered. She swiftly maneuvered the car into her lane, then immediately hit the brake.

"Whoa," Sokka gasped.

"Why'd they stop?" Zuko said.

Aang leaned out the window and looked ahead.

"It's the Avatar!" Someone far away yelled.

Aang waved at her, then pulled his head back in. "It goes up for a while," he reported. "A couple of blocks."

Zuko threw his hands up a little. "Great. We burnt up all our free time at the damn record store."

Katara took one of Zuko's tapes, put it in the deck, and hit play. Synthesized notes formed a melodic and familiar intro. Zuko stared at the played, then sighed in relief.

"Damn you're awesome," he grunted.

"If we can't go oo-oooh-oon, to survive the tides-"

"Yeah!"

"Whoo!"

"Finally!"

The traffic had suddenly cleared and they could resume driving.

"How long was that?" Aang asked. Zuko checked his watch.

"It's eight thirty-two now..." he checked the time on the receipt for the tapes. "And we started at about Six forty-eight."

"Holy shit," Sokka observed.

"I can't believe we listened to that album twice, with a ten-minute hiatus in the middle," Aang said, closing up a plot hole I can't believe I fucking left open.

"Thanks, Aang, that would have seriously pissed off some commenters," Zuko said.

Sokka, looking out the window, said suddenly, "Man, it sucks that Toph couldn't come."

"Yeah," Katara agreed. "It sucks that she had prior plans and we won't be able to see her at all during this trip," she continued, looking slowly to her right.

"Exept when we go through Gaoling." Zuko stated, tapping the city on his map. "Maybe we can hit her up on our way through."

Katara burped.

"Excuse me."

Zuko tried not to laugh.

"Where do I turn?" Katara struggled to make sense of the map Zuko had drawn.

"Right here," he said, pointing to a green crayon line on the blank Palace Stationary he had hand-drawn the map on.

"Wh- no, I just passed that."

"No, it's up there." He pointed towards the street ahead.

"But- ok, this one?"

"Yes."

Katara pulled up to the line and waited for the arrow to turn green.

"This isn't drawn to scale then," she deduced, taking the map out of his hand.

"No, I made it from memory."

"It's green, Katara," Aang alerted. The driver took the turn.

"Ok, now..." She glanced at the map again.

"Yeah, just- just keep going."

"Hey, look," Sokka said. A homeless guy was ambling down the sidewalk without pants, his unit flopping in the breeze.

"Eww! Thanks, thank you Sokka,"

"How did a naked homeless guy get into the Upper Ring?" Aang muttered.

"Right there!" Zuko barked! Katara slammed the brakes, coming to a near halt. A faint crashing sound was heard behind them.

"Shit, did I do that?" Katara craned her head to look backwards.

"Just; just go," Zuko said hurriedly. Katara pulled into a space along the side of the road and looked through her window at The Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop.

"Is it closed?" Sokka asked, leaning over Aang.

"Yeah, you see that sign that says they're closed? That means they're closed," Katara retorted.

"Shit!" Zuko looked at his watch. "Oh, wait, it's Sunday isn't it?"

Everyone in the car turned, looked at him, and nodded. "It's also nine o'clock," Sokka said.

"Dammit, I forgot. Sorry guys."

The car sat there idling for a little bit. Zuko elbowed Katara in the arm a little. "Switch me."

Katara got out of the car. Zuko waited for the school bus to pass before opening his door and getting out.

He plopped down in the driver's seat. His knees came up on either side of the steering column.

"Jesus Katara, did you mate with the steering wheel?" He slid the seat back a couple of inches. Katara scoffed and slid hers forward.

"Well I hope you bought it dinner first..." He said under his breath before pulling back into traffic.

No one said anything for a minute or two. Then, "Aang, are you crying?" from Sokka.

Aang nodded tearfully.

"Well what's the matter?"

"Zuko crushed by foot..."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Aang." Zuko slid up to let Aang move his foot out.

After Katara put Aang's second toe back together, Zuko pulled into a Burger King Drive-Thru.

"I'm starving, and we're already behind schedule. I'll just drive like a maniac once we get out of the city."

Sokka read the menu. "Huh, Spy Toys! I'll have six Kid's Meals."

"Get one Sokka, you'll get sick," Katara said.

Zuko goosed up to the order box and Aang, Katara, and Sokka covered their ears.

Zuko paid the toll to leave the city using change from his order. Once he hit the Interstate, he got up to full speed and stayed there.

Sokka was asleep. Aang was drifting off. Katara stared at the white dashes zipping by the car at seventy-three miles an hour, undoubtedly hypnotized.

Zuko turned the stereo volume down close to silent, looked over at Katara, and turned the deck on. Journey played quietly. Zuko found that Journey now reminded him of pointless traffic jams, and ejected the tape, replacing it with Aang's Radiohead tape.

"Holy shit."

And Zuko drove.

"What?" Katara mumbled.

"Radiohead's fucking awesome."

Katara smiled slightly, then closed her eyes and leaned sideways onto the window.

"Hey- Where are you going?" Zuko said with a stupid smile.

"Trying to sleep," Katara retaliated without opening her eyes.

"Ok then... Sorry."

"Shit- Fuck!" Zuko tapped the horn and swerved to the right, waking everybody in the car up.

"What?" Aang groaned.

"The- this guy right here just tried to merge into us," Zuko said, still shaken, watching the offending vehicle speed away.

Sokka looked around, saw nothing of issue, and went back to sleep.

Zuko checked his mirror. "Ok then. Good night Sokka."

Everyone in the car had failed back asleep within seconds. He glanced over at Katara quickly before shaking his head.

"Why do I get to drive at night."

I really would have liked to update twice a week, but then my sister got in and fucked the whole system... anyway, thanks.


	5. Chapter the Fifth

The other day I sat down to update Road Trip and post this chapter. Then I looked down and realized I hadn't written it yet. Oops.

* * *

When Katara woke up, she inhaled deeply, looked out her window, then turned to look at Zuko. He was leaning back in his seat, his mouth open and his eyes closed.

"Zuko, wake up!" she screamed.

Zuko smiled and opened his eyes, turning to her with a grin.

"What- Goddammit, Zuko, that wasn't funny!" she punched his arm, fairly hard.

"Sorry, I just saw you wake up and couldn't resist."

Aang leaned forward, between Katara and Zuko. "What?"

"Zuko's a prick," Katara growled.

Aang sat back in his seat, looking over at Sokka. "Usually, when someone in a car yells at the driver to wake up, everyone else wakes up." He poked at Sokka's oblivious cheek. "He's still fast asleep."

Katara scoffed. "Figures." She looked around. "So where are we?"

"We're waiting to get onto the ferry across the bay," Zuko answered, coming to a gentle stop behind another car.

"Oh, ok."

"So I get to wake Sokka up?" Aang asked impishly.

"Oh, I wish Toph were here," Katara said. "She would love to wake Sokka up."

"We could let him sleep in the car," Zuko suggested.

Sokka make a honk-type noise.

"I think that's a yes," Katara laughed to Zuko.

They pulled through the lines of cars, Zuko paid the toll, they drove the car onto the giant boat, and Zuko, Katara and Aang got out.

Zuko and Aang hit one of the ferry's vending machines hard. Katara disappeared, probably outside of the ship by the railing.

* * *

Zuko crumpled up a Reese's Pieces wrapper and threw it away. Aang put another Yuan in the machine and pressed the combination for Cool Ranch Doritos.

"So Aang," Zuko began. "Are you Vegetarian or Vegan?"

Aang looked at him as he opened the flap to grab his chips. "Vegetarian. I thought you knew that."

"I get them confused."

"Well you know how to tell if someone's vegan, right?" Aang attacked the bag.

"How?"

"Don't worry; they'll tell you."

Zuko laughed. Aang went to the bathroom. Zuko looked around, then decided to go topside to find Katara.

Zuko was walking in front of a bank of chairs when the ferry lurched from its dock. Unfortunately for Zuko, the laws of Physics work in every universe, and his own inertia caused him to trip and fall sideways in front of a group of people.

"Dammit," he swore, getting back up. The people sitting in the chairs were staring at him mirthfully. "What?" he shot to a large woman with teeth too small for her mouth.

Zuko quickly got his sea legs back, and searched both decks for Katara. If he had been a bird flying above the ship, he would have seen Katara somehow operating exactly opposite whatever side of the ship he happened to be walking, in the same direction he was walking. She even went inside the first deck when Zuko went to the second deck, which was situated above the first.

Zuko only had a faint understanding of the laws of physics, but he was pretty sure that Invisibility was against the Second Amendment.

After twenty minutes of comedic timing, Zuko gave up his search and went to go sit down, somewhere far away from the fat lady with Tic-Tac teeth.

* * *

Katara's shoes were soaking wet. She'd stepped in a puddle (there were only six billion three hundred twenty million on the first deck), and it didn't occur to her to waterbend her feet dry until Zuko had actually sat down inside the ship.

"Oh, duh," she said, and lifted a stream of water out of her shoes, formed a ball, and dropped it into the ocean.

She turned around to see a little boy with an ice cream cone staring at her, an obvious booger on his upper lip. "Are you a waterbender, lady?"

_You just watched me drop a pint of water off the side of the ship_, she thought. Her brain refused to focus on anything other than the piece of scrambled egg this kid had on his upper lip. "Why, yes, I am." And with that, she drew out all the water in the puddle this kid was standing in, formed it into a rope, and launched it into the ocean.

Unfortunately for this little kid, Katara had accidentally pulled all of the water out of his ice cream, leaving him with a nice chunk of astronaut ice cream. He couldn't have cared less, and continued to stare at Katara in the most unnerving way.

His booger was still stubbornly stuck to his face. Katara grimaced, then reached behind her, bent a fist-sized ball of water from the sea, brought it up to the deck, and with a fast swiping motion, blasted the stupid booger right off his face, back into the ocean.

The most disturbing thing to Katara was that the kid didn't move a muscle as the Master Waterbender slashed a good-sized portion of her weapon of choice at near-relativistic velocity by his face.

Instead he remained still for a few seconds, the same look of dumb shock frozen on his face, then dropped his "ice cream" cone on the deck and ran away.

Katara nervously edged away from where she was standing, then herself ran away, glancing over her shoulder often.

* * *

Aang zipped up, flushed the toilet, exited the stall, and went to wash his hands. However, the levers wouldn't turn the water on.

He tried harder, twisting them as far as they would go, yet not a drop of water came from the faucet.

Oh well. What was the point of being the Avatar if he couldn't bend the water in the pipes?

Aang stood back, took a stance, and "felt" for the water. There, in the main pipe that fed to the ladies' room on the other side of the wall.

Aang was not a plumber, by any sense of the word. Even if you took the word "plumber" by its original Latin meaning, as one who works with lead (that's why the periodic symbol for Lead is "Pb". I apologize for any exploded heads.), Aang wasn't good at leadbending either. He had no idea that maintenance had shut off the valve to the men's room for, well, maintenance. He actually would have, or at least wouldn't have had to care, if a single thirteen-year old boy hadn't decided to try and impress his friends by taking the "closed" sign off the restroom door.

But enough about the cardboard "closed" sign laying behind a trash can near the restrooms. Aang wanted to wash his hands.

He felt the water being stopped by some kind of blockage about six feet away from the sink in question. If Aang had used metalbending to affirm what he saw with waterbending, he would have seen that the "blockage" in question was actually a ball valve, that a janitor had closed just twelve minutes prior to Aang's entry.

The Avatar grabbed the water, and pulled it forward, towards the sink.

If you take the take the number of particles of a fluid in a closed container, multiply it by a constant (about 1.38 times 10 to the -23), multiply that by the temperature of the fluid in Kelvins, then divide by the volume in meters cubed, you'll be able to determine the pressure that that fluid exerts on the walls of its container, in pascals. Neat trick, right? That really doesn't have much to do with what Aang was doing, though, but still.

Aang had no way of telling that the pressure he was exerting on the joint between the pipe and the ball valve was in excess of thousands of kilopascals. For comparison, unless you're in outer space without a suit, the force acting upon every square centimeter of your body is very close to 10 newtons, or two pounds. Standard air pressure is about 101 kilopascals.

The company responsible for the manufacture of the ball valve guaranteed a quality product. That was the motto they printed on every box that left their factory. They had no idea that The Avatar himself would once test the durability of their valve.

The little hardware company was so good at its job, that when something finally did break, it was the solder that held the pipe to the ball valve, and not the valve itself.

Water surged out of the pipe at eardrum-crushing pressure, almost immediately drenching the janitor working just four feet below it. When Aang felt the water in the pipe suddenly transform into water outside the pipe, he let go. Without the back-pressure he was exerting (Newton's third), even more water torrented onto the poor man.

Aang looked around in shock, then ran outside the bathroom.

* * *

Below both decks were two levels of cars. There were exactly tree people on the bottom level: two watchmen, and a single Water Tribe teenager fast asleep in the back of one of the cars.

Sokka opened an eye. He would have opened both, but something appeared to be holding one shut. Closer inspection revealed it to be his knee.

He sat up slowly, because his back was killing him, and looked out his window. There was a sea of cars that way.

He looked around the interior of the vehicle. No one else was in with him. He had absolutely no idea where he was and began to feel claustrophobic. Sokka pulled on the handle a few times, began to panic, then deftly unlocked the door and shoved it open.

* * *

I'm so very very sorry this took so long. I've been traveling and I'm afraid to use the computer when someone else is awake in the house with me.


	6. Chapter the Sixth

I know a couple of you really liked Road Trip, so these last few weeks must have been ultra lame. It's been over a month since it happened though. See, I used to write my stories on my iPod touch, email them to myself, access them on the desktop computer, and post them. However, a couple of weeks ago my dearly beloved iPod Touch drowned, and I lost access to all of my stories (which was a lot, I think I'm most pissed about just one though,) and all of my pictures, which had just gone over one thousand. I had Chapter the Sixth written though, which sort of bummed me out because I hate rewriting stuff. But enough complaining. It's time to move one. My iPod would have wanted it this way.

* * *

Sokka waddled up the stairs and into the main seating area. He scanned the sea of heads until he spotted a single black-haired head just sitting there. Grumbling, he waddled towards it.

Zuko was reading an eleven-month old Reader's Digest magazine when a shadow crossed in front of him. He looked up to see Sokka standing above him with the meanest glare he'd ever seen him use. Zuko broke into a wide smile.

"Hey, Sokka! I'm glad you're up!"

Sokka didn't say anything. He continued to glare at Zuko, who got the feeling that if Sokka had been a firebender, he would be ashes.

Then without any warning Sokka swung his right arm up and slapped Zuko on the face surprisingly hard.

Zuko cradled his cheek and continued to smile. "What the hell was that for?" he laughed.

Finally Sokka spoke. "Did you know that if security catches you wandering around the car lot while everybody's supposed to be above deck, they automatically assume that you're smuggling cocaine?"

Confused, Zuko rubbed his face for a moment. "What- Wait, Oh!" And then he broke into hysterical laughter that drew the attention of more people than that slap a few seconds ago.

While Zuko struggled to keep his organs inside his body, Sokka simply shook his head and waddled away.

* * *

Aang found Katara leaning on the railing of the lower deck. She turned to see him approach. "Hi Aang. What's wrong?"

What was wrong was that Aang had just caused a major flood in the maintenance closet and he was now paranoid. "Nothing. What are you doing?" He stood really close to her and looked around nervously.

"I'm just looking at the water. It's so clear-"

"Hey listen, if anybody asks- and nobody's gonna ask, really- I was with you for the last five minutes." Aang continued to glance around.

"What? Why?" Katara pushed hair out of her face.

"No reason, don't worry about it. Look, you can see the dock." Sure enough, the boat was approaching the opposite dock.

The two turned to look at the dock.

* * *

Sokka had to pee, but he didn't want to take his pants off again. So instead he found a vending machine, got a bag of assorted fruit snacks and went outside. He finished the fruit snacks just as he turned the corner and saw Aang and Katara leaning against the railing.

Katara and Aang jumped visibly when Sokka clapped his hands on their shoulders. Aang especially peed himself just a little bit, while Katara screeched "No God No!" When they both saw it was just Sokka, they relaxed, and Aang tried to figure out how to discreetly dry his underwear.

Sokka stepped forward between them, giving a thousand-yard-stare to something on the horizon. "Hey guys. What are you doing?" he drawled.

"Looking at the- the dock," Aang stammered.

"Mh Hmm," Sokka said with a nod. "Now, whose idea was it to leave me in the car?"

"Um, definitely Zuko. It was Zuko's idea," Katara answered.

"Uh huh. Zuko," Aang agreed.

"Well I already got Zuko."

Aang suddenly looked backwards down the deck. "What's that? C-coming!" He took off in the direction of his imaginary summoner.

"There's no one there," Katara observed brilliantly.

"Whatever. Let him run around soaked in terror pee."

* * *

The ferry docked and the four met down at Zuko's car. Zuko made a point to laugh at Sokka's expense as often as possible. Just as Sokka was about to sit down in the backseat, Zuko turned around and stuck his hand out. "Whoa Sokka, do you need one of those inflatable donuts?" Sokka cursed at him and sat down with a wince he hid from everyone.

Eventually the cars were heralded from the ferry and Zuko drove out onto the regular roads. He navigated through the streets of the small port town and tried to find a store.

"Alright Sokka, I'm really sorry about all that. Do you want anything? Like something to eat? Drink?"

Sokka's arms were crossed. "Yeah, ice cream. For my ass."

Zuko fake-laughed heartily. "Ha ha. That movie sucked. How about a Sprite and a Snickers bar?"

"Fuck you. I don't need your pity food."

Katara sensed the animosity in the car and spoke up. "Wow Sokka, what crawled up your butt?"

Zuko almost crashed the car from laughing so hard. He finally pulled over and handed Katara a fiver. "Run in and get your brother a bottle of Sprite and a Snickers bar." He was still catching his breath.

Sokka growled but did not fight the offer of free food. Katara stared at the money in her hand. "Are you serious?" She said.

"Fine. Aang, care to run in?"

Aang created a small gust of air that blew the money out of Katara's hand and into his. He ran out of the car.

* * *

When he came back a few minutes later, he was nearly ecstatic. "I found some batteries! I hope you don't mind Zuko."

"No, that's alright. Everyone ready?"

Zuko drove back into traffic and down the road. Aang disappeared into his Bob Dylan tape and Sokka drank his soda. Zuko tried to scratch the back of one foot with the other foot, which made it very hard to drive behind him. Katara looked at the map.

Katara touched the map. "We have to go through the desert?"

Zuko glanced over. "Yeah. It's the shortest way."

"I sure hope that doesn't bode badly for us," Katara said foreshadowingly.

* * *

Katara found Zuko's old Queen tape which he had lost months ago. He almost peed himself when she read the label and had immediately stuffed it into the deck.

"_And another one gone, and another one gone, another one bites the dust. Hey, he's gonna get you too! Another one bites the dust!_" Zuko and Katara sang in a surprisingly good harmony. Sokka mouthed the words in the back seat while Aang bobbed his head to a different song altogether.

They drove out of the city singing.

* * *

September fourth is National Impersonate A Doctor Day! Change your pen name to let the world know that you're a doctor even though you're not! Just don't dispense any medical advice or try to perform surgery on someone, or you'll be sued for malpractice!


	7. Chapter the Seventh

Ok guys, here's where we're at. I really done fucked up when I decided to have three multi-chapters at the same time. I do not have that kind of attention span. So here's what I'm gonna do.

Dragon and Lightbulbs are on suspension. No one's reading them anyway, and I still need some time to figure them out.

Then I'm going to focus on RT. It should run to about ten or eleven chapters. Don't worry, Toph will be in there. Towards the end.

Then I will produce Meanwhile and Lightbulbs at a rate of approximately one chapter a week each. That should carry me a couple of months. And them I'm out of ideas.

* * *

It made Katara really nervous when Zuko placed the map across the steering wheel and spent more time than he should have looking at it instead of the road. She thought about holding the wheel straight when he did this, but Zuko insisted that he knew what he was doing and that since they were driving through bare scrubland the worst that would happen was that they might run over a bush.

Sokka was doing a crossword puzzle and Aang had a book. Katara couldn't see the cover and didn't want to bother him. She hherself was incredibly bored and now was regretting not playing those travel games they did in chapter two.

"Hey Zuko," she said playfully.

"What." He didn't look up from the map and resumed scat-singing The Ocean.

"Are you bored?"

Zuko looked around at the landscape and settled his eyes on the road ahead. "I don't know. Kindof."

"Want to play a game?" she asked quickly.

"Yeah! Aang, reach back and see if you can grab my Battleship boards!" He gave Katara a condescending look.

Katara looked down dejectedly. "I meant like Would You Rather or something."

Then suddenly Aang thrust one of Zuko's Battleship boards in front of his face, almost up his nostril. "Dammit Aang, I was kidding." Aang mumbled something like sorry.

Sokka was staring lustfully at Battleship. "You brought Battleship?"

"I though it might be something fun," he said with a shrug.

"Hey Aang-" Sokka began, but when it was clear that nothing less than a thermonuclear explosion would separate him from his book he glanced back at his crossword.

Zuko stared ahead for a moment. "Katara."

"Huh?"

He paused briefly. "Would you rather drink a pint of used motor oil or wear a suit made of used condoms?"

Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and turned towards Katara.

Katara had an expression exclusive to someone who had been thrown an incredibly strange question while she wasn't even playing. She gaped silently for a moment, stating at Zuko.

"C... condoms?" Zuko rubbed his face with one hand and nodded.

Sokka and Aang stared from the backseat, eagerly waiting an answer. Katara continued to look around in shock.

"Dammit Zuko... uh, that depends. Whose condoms?"

Zuko shrugged. "Strangers'. They're all disease free though. Wait- No, no they're not. Well some might be but you have no way of knowing."

"I don't know. The motor oil I guess."

Sokka sighed. Aang smiled triumphantly.

"Ok Zuko your turn," Sokka almost shouted. "Would you rather have sex with Ke$ha or, uh..."

"Or put your penis in a food processor!" Aang said for him.

"Food processor. Definitely."

"That was really fast," Katara observed.

"Well which would you choose?" He shot back.

"But I don't have a penis."

Zuko scratched his nose awkwardly for a couple of seconds. "Ok Aang, your turn."

* * *

"Spend an hour licking a platoon of soldiers' boots clean, or have every hair plucked out of your body one by one?"

Sokka rubbed his chin in thought. "I don't know. Have the soldiers been doing a lot of hiking?"

Katara nodded. "Yes. Through mud. And some of them have trench foot."

"Hmm... I don't know. Probably the hair. Plucking them out."

"Alright. Ok, now Zuko..." As everyone else had run out of ideas, Katara had somehow taken over as the questionmaster. "Would you rather open-mouth kiss Azula for one minute, or Sokka for ten seconds?"

All the vehicle's occupants listened intently for Zuko's answer.

Zuko bristled. "Is there tongue?"

"Azula yes, Sokka no. And Sokka just ate four cloves of garlic."

"Uh- Shit. Sokka."

"Ten cloves of garlic?"

"Still Sokka."

"Okay, how about if Sokka ate thirty cloves of garlic, and spent the last hour licking a platoon of soldiers' boots clean."

Everyone had been given a free pass. This enabled the victim to skip the question if they couldn't or didn't want to answer it. Zuko already used his first when he was asked whether he'd rather wear a suit made of spiders or get a "male abortion". Aang wouldn't elaborate, so Zuko skipped. If Zuko passed, he would lose.

"Uh..." Zuko shrugged a couple of times. "Uh, pass."

"Ha! I win!" Aang had dropped out when he couldn't say whether he would rather eat a pound of raw chickenbeetle or have his colon filled with spiders. Spiders figured prominently for the group, because even though spiders can be cool sometimes, they can also suck hard.

So Sokka won. And he didn't keep it a secret.

Sokka finished celebrating and they all fell into a kind of post-game trance. They each stared out a window for about one minute, then Zuko cleared his throat.

"Once I saw Azula kissing Mai."

Everyone in the vehicle was caught off guard at this seemingly unrelated and unwarranted comment. They all turned to glare at Zuko and demand an explanation.

"Your sister Azula?" Sokka said.

"And your ex-girlfriend Mai?" Katara said.

Zuko nodded weakly, rubbing his neck. "I was about eleven, and I was trying to find Mai. So I was looking around the Palace, because I knew Azula had invited her. And I walked by Azula's bedroom, and I glanced inside, and..."

"And what," breathed Sokka suspensfully.

"I think Azula was like eight, and I saw her standing in front of Mai, and then she said something to her, and then she kind of, just- you know, kissed her."

"Well maybe it was a friendly kiss," Katara ventured. "Little girls can be really friendly."

"No," Zuko said with a head shake, "it lasted too long to be friendly. I think it was maybe about ten seconds long."

Sokka and Aang were still recovering. They glanced at each other a few times and then Aang finally broke the silence.

"And then what?"

Zuko paused a second. "They both left her room, Azula just kind of walked away, and Mai just came over to me and acted like... nothing had happened. And I asked her what she was doing in there and she said she wasn't doing anything and refused to admit to anything."

Sokka shook his head. "I'm sorry Zuko. I don't know what to do with that."

Katara turned to face Zuko. "Yeah, why did you even bring that up?"

"I don't know, I've just never told anyone, and it just felt so friendly in here, everyone was vulnerable, it just felt good to get off my chest." And Zuko adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and smiled at the road.

Katara, Sokka and Aang looked at each other.

* * *

So this took quite a lot longer to do than I would have liked. Ubisoft, Y U Make Assassin's Creed so fun? Well I just finished it, so until I start number Two or Grand Theft Auto IV, these should be a little bit more regular.

Hooray, I just finished a game that came out four years ago!


	8. Chapter the Eighth

I just started playing Assassin's Creed II recently, so that's where I've been these last few days. Sorry guys, but here we are.

* * *

Hold on guys. Just a second.

* * *

"Thirty-one." Aang pushed his face against the window. His nose scrunched up on the glass, giving him a pig-like appearence when viewed from outside of the car.

"That makes an average of two point three eight cactuses per mile," Sokka declared from the front seat. He and Aang had spent the last thirteen miles calculating the mean number of cacti on the left side of the road.

"I think that's 'cacti',˝ Zuko suggested.

"Thirty-two." Aang pushed his lips against the glass and puffed out his cheeks.

Sokka did the math on the back of the road map. "Two point four six one."

"Fourteen miles." Zuko said.

Katara looked up. "Hey guys, what about all the cactuses on the right side of the road?"

"Cacti."

"Shut up Zuko. Well Katara, due to the law of averages, the mean number of cactuses on the right side of the road is two point four six one."

"Guys, it's cacti. The plural of cactus is cacti."

"All those who give a fuck, please raise your hand," Katara said.

Nobody but Zuko raised their hands. He grumbled resignedly.

* * *

Zuko could have had any car in the world. As the Firelord's son and then eventually Firelord, he had access to one of the largest operating budgets in the world, and with it the largest catalog of cars right there behind the Earth King himself.

Instead Zuko had an old 86 Karik, which he'd bought from a junkie shortly after his coronation. When asked, he said it was simply because she was reliable and he liked the color. He never said anything about the eighty dollars worth of heroin he found under the passenger seat.

The problem with nearly-twenty year-old infrequently maintained cars is that they generally suck. Zuko discovered this when his engine made a grumbling noise and started to smell funny. Then the gas pedal stopped working.

"What- shit, shit-"

Sokka wrinkled his nose. "What's that smell?"

"Uh... the engine." Zuko pumped the gas to no avail.

"What's wrong with it?" Sokka looked at Zuko, who was frantically trying to get the car to drive again.

"I don't know, it's never done this before!" He tapped on the fuel gauge frantically. "It says there's fuel in it!"

Sokka leaned over to look at the dashboard panel. "The Check Engine light's on."

"I can see!"

"What's wrong?" Katara asked.

"Nothing Katara, the car just broke." Zuko gently pulled over to the shoulder.

The main reason Zuko was so upset was that it had been a long time since they last saw a sign of civilization, and that was at 100 Kilometers an hour. It would take them a while to walk back to fix the engine.

In addition the engine failure, it was forty-five degrees outside and there was no wind.

Zuko gently parked the car and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Sokka stared at the dashboard. Aang hadn't looked up from his book. Katara looked back and forth between Zuko and Sokka concernedly.

"What are we gonna do?" she asked.

Sokka opened the door and got out.

* * *

Zuko was by no means a mechanic. He couldn't tell the difference between a ratchet and his left hand (**Much like my sister**) and would die if tasked with fixing something simple as a pencil sharpener.

Lucky for Zuko, after the war Sokka had spent a couple of months in the Northern Air Temple apprenticing for The Mechanist and a strange man whose name escaped him.

Sokka opened the hood and looked inside. The engine was smoldering and still smelling funny.

He knew this would take a while.

Zuko stayed in the car tapping the steering wheel nervously. The air conditioning was off so the car was getting warm quickly.

"Aang."

Aang did not look up. He was still reading.

"Aang!"

"Hm." The Avatar still didn't look up, but at least acknowledged that there was a universe outside of his book.

"Do you think you could blow some air around to cool us off?" Zuko rubbed the sweat off his forehead.

Aang stalled a second then looked up from his book for the first time in several hours. "Why'd we stop?"

Zuko groaned and Katara made a face-palm motion.

* * *

It was really goddamn hot outside and Sokka was standing there looking at an engine in it.

He squinted at a bolt deep within the block and leaned toward it, doing math in his head.

Finally he stood up, wiped his hands together and closed the hood. "Zuko," he called.

From the front seat, Zuko looked up quickly. "What?"

"Come here." Zuko started to open the door. "And grab the map." Zuko fumbled with the map for a second and got out of the car with a _clunk_.

"What?" He moved towards the front of the car and set the map on the hood gently. Sokka rotated the map upright and began to peruse the mess of roads and highways.

While this happened Zuko stood to the side silently. "Did you figure out what was wrong?"

Sokka nodded and traced a finger down a red line on the map. After a second he stood up and turned to Zuko. "Your oil filter blew up. You need a new one."

Zuko leaned forward slightly and opened his mouth. "A... a new one?"

"Yeah. There's no way to fix it. Now-" Sokka took a step backwards and placed a finger on the map. "We just drove through this town right?" Zuko craned his neck forward to look.

"Yeah."

"But we haven't driven through this one?" Sokka slid his finger down the map about three centimeters.

"No."

"Ok." Sokka leaned back down to look at the map again. "I think these towns are about nineteen or twenty miles apart, and we're somewhere in the middle."

"Uh-huh."

Sokka explained his plan to Zuko.

* * *

"There's a town that way," Sokka stated pointing down the road in front of the car.

"And one that way," Zuko added quickly pointing in the opposite direction.

"Right. So we're somewhere in between, but we don't know which is closer and by how much."

Zuko and Sokka were both smart guys and often developed a sort of tag-team when explaining things. In fact Katara sometimes called the two of them together the Tag Team, although not to their faces.

"So we'll need to break into two teams. One will go back and the other that way."

"Since the the cities are about twenty miles apart, that means we can't be more than ten miles from a city."

"And that means that each team will only have to walk ten miles, and if they see the town at some point, that means that we're closer to that one."

"And we can buy the part we need. If we don't see the town after ten miles, just turn around and walk back to the car." Sokka pounded his fist on the hood. Zuko cringed.

Katara and Aang stood perfectly still in absolute shock. "We have to walk ten miles?" Katara said after a moment.

"It's the most efficient way to make sure we find the part we need," Sokka replied with a shrug. "Ok, so teams. Uh, Zuko, you and Aang maybe-"

"Actually what if you went with Aang?" Zuko said abruptly. "And I went with- with Katara." He stepped behind Aang and Katara and glanced at Sokka."

Sokka blinked a bit. "Uh, ok, that's fine I guess."

"I just think that... it might be a good idea if we have a master waterbender on each team." Zuko stuttered.

Sokka wasn't about to argue and didn't know why Zuko was trying to. He shrugged. "Ok, me and Aang and you and Katara."

Katara and Aang were still reeling ffrom being forced to walk ten miles. "This wouldn't have happened if we'd taken Appa," Aang muttered sadly.

So they set out on their long hot walk, never to see each other again.

Haha, just fucking with you. Stay tuned for the next chapter, which at this rate will come out just after the nnext season of LOK.

* * *

I'm so sorry this took as long as it did. If you're curious why, look at the top of the chapter... and as I get ready to post this, I'm currently almost finished with Assassin's Creed Revelations. So, that's why.


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